s/o Why do you answer "would you eat this?" the way you do?

[Word Nerd]

What are your "would you eat this?" answers primarily based on? USDA food safety guidelines, what your parents taught you, previous experience with food poisoning, phobias, or something else? I'm just curious! I thought about making a poll, but I figured there were too many possible answers.

[Crimson Wife]

I only use the USDA guidelines if I'm disagreeing with someone and am on the side of toss it, LOL! The USDA tends to err on the side of being overly cautious IMHO.

 

My own parents tend to err on the side of "ah, it's fine", especially my dad. He'll drink milk that the rest of us all agree has soured claiming that it's fine. He pretty much only tosses it if it comes out of the carton in chunks (ick!)

[Catwoman]

I have had food poisoning, so I am probably more cautious than many others, but I also adhere to food safety guidelines because I don't think it's worth taking chances on feeding my family something that might make them sick.

 

Generally speaking, how much money would I be saving by serving potentially tainted food? A few dollars? Five dollars? Ten? Twenty? My family's health is worth a lot more to me than that.

 

I hate having to throw stuff away, but it's better than worrying about it making someone sick if I cook it and we eat it.

[HSmomof2]

My dh is a health inspector....he's trained me well over the last 20 years. :-)

[poppy]

What I think my mom would tell me to do.

[AHASRADA]

My experience with my own immediate family (self, dh and kids). If it doesn't smell bad or have other obvious signs of spoilage, it's probably fine ( for us).

 

We regularly leave leftovers out for a few hours before refrigerating, occasionally have forgotten a pot of soup out overnight, and groceries sometimes wait in the car for 6 hours until we get home to put them away. None of us has ever gotten sick from any of it, ever. I am aware of proper food handling and try my best to follow the guidelines within reason, but I won't waste food that appears fine based on arbitrary guidelines. Yes, I've eaten several cartons of yogurt that were expired by a month. It smelled and tasted fine, and it's yogurt, it's supposed to have bacteria in it, come on!

 

That said, my mother's system is quite sensitive due to her health issues, and takes food handling seriously. I am very careful with the food I serve to her and to others, since I know not everyone's stomachs are as strong as ours, and I would not want to be responsible for making anyone else sick.

 

When answering "Would YOU eat this?" I answer for myself, knowing what my system can handle.

[abba12]

What my mum would say. We never got sick and her timeframes etc make sense to me as an adult. She wasn't overly cautious (nothing wrong with letting meat defrost on the bench as long as it's not the middle of summer, and pantry staples last practically forever) but at the same time she did have limits (leftovers in the fridge last, with chicken or fish 2 or 3 days depending on how quickly they were put away, red meat is 3 to 4 days based on same criteria, and vegetarian meals are 5 unless they have rice, because rice is actually one of the most common but least known causes of food poisoning, and leftovers should always be heated beyond the point of eating and allowed to cool, not just warmed to eating heat). I have had food poisoning, but never from my own homemade food.

[mirth]

I mostly belong to the "Eat it because you want it, not because it's there" school of thought.  Also, I read barfblog sometimes.  

[Laura Corin]

What I was taught and how I have lived, including seeing how people in different countries manage food.  If it's a food/situation that I'm not familiar with, I don't comment.

 

L

[Melissa in Australia]

Mostly from personal experience. we live a pretty much self-sufficient lifestyle. we are pretty in touch with food and how to store it.

[LucyStoner]

I've known hunger. And I've never had any food poisoning from home cooked food or leftovers. I am extremely to the just eat it side of the fence. There are a few foods I am more cautious with but mostly if it is not foul in taste, smell, color or consistency, I eat it.

[Rosie_0801]

I don't have a fridge, so I know most things can be left longer than most people do in mild weather in temperate regions.

[EmmaNZ]

I don't have a fridge, so I know most things can be left longer than most people do in mild weather in temperate regions.

Wow Rosie I'm pretty gobsmacked (and impressed)! How on earth do you do it? And in Aussie too?!

[Rosie_0801]

Wow Rosie I'm pretty gobsmacked (and impressed)! How on earth do you do it? And in Aussie too?!

 

By not keeping meat or much dairy at home. By learning to cook the right amount. By eating the salad ingredients before the root vegetables. By opening a jar for breakfast and eating some of it each meal until it is gone, which is usually dinner time or the next day. By not buying large jars of most things. :p  By not living in the tropics.  That sort of thing.  :)

[Elfknitter.#]

By not keeping meat or much dairy at home. By learning to cook the right amount. By eating the salad ingredients before the root vegetables. By opening a jar for breakfast and eating some of it each meal until it is gone, which is usually dinner time or the next day. By not buying large jars of most things. :p By not living in the tropics. That sort of thing. :)

I think that's awesome. Do you have local markets available daily for fresh items? I so wish we did in the US.

[Rosie_0801]

I think that's awesome. Do you have local markets available daily for fresh items? I so wish we did in the US.

 

I wish. No, we live out in the sticks. Theoretically I'd get all my veggies from the garden but in practice there is drought, rabbits and a wallaby. I stop at the supermarket and pick up a few things whenever I'm out.

[creekland]

We tend to eat things as long as they don't smell or look bad.  I can't recall any of us ever getting sick from it.  In less wealthy countries, far more is eaten then here (often with limited refrigeration) and people still live quite happily.  I've often wondered if we get sick so rarely because we haven't treated our bodies with kid gloves.

 

I tend to think most in the US throw things out unnecessarily.

 

We are careful in prep with raw meat vs uncooked or lightly cooked foods, but that's about it.

 

It's EXTREMELY rare that we throw any food out.  I can't stand waste.  Extra food scraps (from cleaning veggies or whatever) almost always go to our chickens.  If not good for chickens (like potato scraps) it goes on our compost pile.  If not good for chickens or compost (citrus or meat scraps/bones), then it goes on our hedgerow away from the house for any scavenger that wants it.

 

BUT, I rarely give advice on those threads because I don't want to be responsible if others were to get sick.  Some are more sensitive and wishing it weren't so doesn't make it happen.

[VaKim]

Experience. We used to go to my grandmother's every Sunday. She would cook a huge meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, pinto beans, macaroni and cheese, rolls, biscuits, etc. (yeah, it was like a buffet, lol). We would all eat lunch. Then she'd just toss a cloth tablecloth over the whole table to keep the flies off, and we'd go back later and eat supper (dinner?). Nobody ever got sick. 

 

My mom never refrigerates mayo, mustard, jelly, ketchup, or butter. My aunts never refrigerate eggs. We all leave stuff out to cool before we put it in the fridge (like big pots of soup). 

 

I think I read somewhere that people can build a tolerance to spoiled food like to many other things. For instance, there are places where poor people used to rummage through grocery store dumpsters for the thrown out meat and eat it and not get sick because they had gotten used to it. I think there are laws that keep that from happening most places now though. I figure if someone has always been extra careful about what they eat, they are more likely to become sick if they do eat something ever so slightly spoiled.

[Elfknitter.#]

Despite having an immediate family member in the fast food/ restaurant industry... We keep things longer then we probably should (but would have been a norm for my grandmothers), or leave it out longer than we should by today's standards. But it also seems like there's an equally bad practice by some (SOME, NOT ALL) food workers. Food poisoning for us happens when we think, "hey, let's just grab something out tonight. ". Few hours later 1, 2 or all of us are sick from bad chicken, bad salad, (hi Ecco.li or listeria), or some food handler was contagious.

 

So I guess we're more lenient with things cooked and store at home vs. store bought.

[Chris in VA]

I follow a nurse friend's advice re leaving food out--3-4 hours tops.

We are bad about eating leftovers, except chicken and rice, which always goes quickly, so I do throw out some food.

We have a butter keeper (you put the butter in the indented lid, flip the lid over and put it into a crock with a little water in it that seals it), so I don't refrigerate all the butter.

We don't eat or drink anything expired.

 

Oh, and I've had food poisoning, too--twice, at catered work events. Once at a teacher appreciation dinner, nearly 20 of us got sick!

 

I think many people have eaten something spoiled and had a reaction, but it has been mild enough (maybe a looser stool or a little tummy thing or a slight headache) that they didn't connect it to the food.

[Crimson Wife]

I have had food poisoning, but never from my own homemade food.

This. I've only gotten food poisoning after eating in restaurants.

[Serenade]

What my parents told me, common sense, and a lifetime of experience. I hardly give the USDA a thought. If I listened to them, I'd be throwing away a lot of good food.

 

ETA: We generally eat leftovers, no matter the variety, for up to a week. Sometimes more after careful inspection.

 

I will say, though, that the older I become, the more cautious I become, too.

[creekland]

The only time I recall any of us being sick from food poisoning it came from deli meat we bought at a Factory Outlet store.  We know it came from that as only those who ate it got sick - and they ate it at different meals - same timing for getting sick - same symptoms, etc.  Once we put two and two together we threw the rest out - and I've never been in that Outlet Store again.  I also don't buy their foods at our local grocery store.

 

In hindsight, we should have reported them, but at the time my son worked that summer at their food factory (not deli meats) and he didn't want us jeopardizing his job.  It seems like an incredibly stupid reason now.  As we age I think we not only get smarter, we are also less concerned with "not-so-important" things that we put too much emphasis on earlier.

[Word Nerd]

I'm more cautious than my mom with food safety, but not as cautious as USDA. My grandmother, who was born in a soddy and went through the Depression and Dust Bowl, almost never threw anything away because she believed it was shameful to wadte food, and to my knowledge I never got sick at her table.

 

I do think it's shocking that up to 40% of the US food supply is tossed out, and I wonder what percentage of that is due to being overly cautious and not understanding best-by labels, etc. My share of that has more to do with forgetting about leftovers or produce until they are obviously unedible than "better safe than sorry" food safety concerns.

[Desert Strawberry]

My dh is a health inspector....he's trained me well over the last 20 years. :-)

My dh is a safety professional. He knows the mathematical formulas for spoilage.

I have lived overseas. I have seen how other parts of the world manage without all of the precautions we take.

Mostly, I use common sense. If it looks or smells rancid, it's rancid. If it's in good condition, it's fine.

We don't eat most of the scary foods like unpreserved meat, dairy products. We preserve our own foods. We know how those processes work. 

We are maybe more knowledgeable about spoilage. We know what to look for.

I have never considered asking "Would you eat this?" Beyond asking someone else to sniff something I don't normally eat (is this cheese, mustard, cured, seasoned turkey supposed to smell like this?).

[Amy in NH]

Experience mostly.  I think that we are a bit hyper here in the US about food dates, and many foods are just fine past the date put on it by the supplier. 

[Kevin'sMom]

Rosie, I am totally impressed!

 

I am wondering if anyone reading these posts has ever gotten food poisoning from eating food from their own home? This must be a really rare occurrence, no matter what method or non-method of preservation is used. I have had really serious food poisoning after eating at a Chick-You-Know, and can never eat there again.

[Desert Strawberry]

This. I've only gotten food poisoning after eating in restaurants.

I had food poisoning once, after eating an egg roll from Jack in the Box. 

 

Never in Japan, where few foods are pasteurized or refrigerated, never in little border towns in Mexico, never in the tropics, never at home, never at a pot luck.

 

There was a bad outbreak when the first Outback steakhouse opened in Japan. I attribute that to lack of knowledge of handling beef. We didn't go till a bit later, and had no problems. 

[Spryte]

For our family: we follow USDA guidelines. Over the top, maybe. But no more risk taking here.

 

My immune system is compromised. I've had horrendous bouts with food poisoning. And I've experienced chronic salmonella. 5 strains! Ick. Very hard to beat. Much more than just stomach upset! Oh, and a tapeworm, from pork. Ummm, never again.

 

To be fair, we are fairly certain these things didn't happen from eating at home, but still ... I am super careful, and I love our meat thermometer.

 

I don't want to waste food, but getting seriously ill isn't an option either. No savings, certainly.

 

We have to find a balance, but if I think it's turned... It goes.

[fraidycat]

I answer based on my (healthy) family and what we do. AND 100% honestly, I base it on the fact that my very own ancestors survived to reproductive age and beyond, without refrigerators. I'm here today as proof. ;)

[creekland]

I do think it's shocking that up to 40% of the US food supply is tossed out, and I wonder what percentage of that is due to being overly cautious and not understanding best-by labels, etc. My share of that has more to do with forgetting about leftovers or produce until they are obviously unedible than "better safe than sorry" food safety concerns.

 

Even considering left-overs and vegetable spoilage/peelings, etc, less than 10% of food in our house goes to our chickens, compost, or hedgerow.  Far less than 10% most of the time.

 

When our fruit trees and garden are in season it's higher as we never get around to using or preserving ALL of what we grow, and we grow things organically, so bugs take their toll on some, but any other time of the year... I simply can't imagine having even close to 10% as waste, much less over that.

 

[DawnM]

Don't ask me.  I grew up in Africa......my stomach isn't quite made of steel like it used to be (too many years in the US!), but I tend to eat some things others wouldn't touch.

[Amy in NH]

 

I am wondering if anyone reading these posts has ever gotten food poisoning from eating food from their own home?

 

None of us have ever had food poisoning, from home or otherwise.

[OhanaBee]

Two bouts of food poisoning have made me cautious.  The first bout - not my fault.  The second - totally my fault.  And, lesson learned.

[ChristusG]

My philosophy is....if you have to ask the question, just throw it away. To me, nothing is worth getting food poisoning over.

[gingersmom]

I've had food poisoning twice.

 

I always throw away no matter how much $$$ was wasted.